Misty [Just Holding Your Hand]

A nice, quick and easy make. Good old Style Arc ‘Misty’ pull-on jeans, modified in minor ways. I’ve got a little larger since buying this one size pattern, so I allowed a tad extra at CB and side seams. Style Arc use 3/8″ standard seam allowances, which I’m not wild about, I love my good old 5/8″…it works fine for knit fabric though.

The fabric is a lovely leafy green stretch denim, cheap as chips, and I can’t remember where I got it, maybe eBay? Here it is with some of the other goodies I dragged from stash at the same time…

For stretch wovens, I’ve fallen foul a couple of times, because of heading for the overlocker. I often find that the seams pull and rip away from the stitching when overlocked, so I tried to keep to the sewing machine here, and just finished raw edges on the overlocker.

I did a moderate amount of wonky topstitching, normal thread, slightly longer stitch. I don’t go for all that twin needle fuss, I just cracked on!

The other changes: I omitted the mock front side pockets, no point in them, and made the whole body longer, as I’m much happier with a waistline that covers my belly rather than digging into my fattest bits. The waistband is wide elastic, covered in stretch fabric, yoga-trousers-style. I won’t say ‘pants’ I just won’t! I’m English dammit!

The waistband WAS intended to have two rows of elastic, folded into a bit of grey jersey I dug out…but the bloody sewing machine decided to fight me. It just WOULD NOT Stitch, either zig zag or straight.

I changed to a fresh microtex needle. No joy. A fresh jersey needle. No joy. Much swearing, and broken thread later, I bodged it on the overlocker, abandoning the double elastic idea. Then I found I’d made a hole in it when trimming, so had to bodge that too, Serves me right for thinking I’d done a nice neat job on all that top stitching!

I also made the legs wider at the bottom, sort of freehand bootcut, as the skinny styles don’t work with my sturdy Doc Martin style boots. I think it worked, although I could have made them very slightly longer. Good enough.

All in all, I’m well chuffed with these, despite the annoying waistband adventure, and I think they’ll look great with the pale green Style Arc Daisy tunic. What do you think? [Very wrinkled, I’d been wearing them all day at work. And I WILL have to fix the waistband, it kept folding over and annoying me]

Oh yes. I tried everything, it reminds me why I avoided knits for years until I got an overlocker. I think I’ll get a different fabric and see if it’s happier stitching that. I find that some just won’t behave with any kind of straight or zigzag stitching.

Nope- although I did buy a generic walking foot a few years ago, I didn’t find it much use [purchased for my sole foray into quilting] as it doesn’t lift high enough to feed much in! I think the issue is a combination of this particular bit of jersey, the thread, and the needle. It was such a small bit of sewing I wasn’t prepared to faff about trying all the multitudinous combinations. I think I’ll remove it, and find an alternative, user friendly, bit of stretch fabric. I throw little away, so have BAGS of scraps

Professional! ROFL. The garden is lovely, that bit is my ‘cottage garden’ corner. We decided to group our plant pots on the ugly but vital grotty grey gravel bed, to make three areas. This one, a lawn and grass garden in the middle, and an ‘oriental ‘ corner opposite, with acer, bamboo, lilies etc. One side has sleeper stepping stones, the other has fake rocks. Quite an effective smallish space before the huge and vertiginous slopes of the lawn!

This type is dead easy, it’s nice soft stretch denim, Style Arc works well for my lack of bum and hips, and I know I need extra length in the torso to fit my belly in. They’re pull on, fake fly front, and don’t take long at all [couple f hours or thereabouts]. Recommended, if you’re a similar shape!

Success! You done good, Style Arc are right up there for fit and style, both of these look great on you. Flipping elastic is a pia, I think it’s more likely to happen when it’s a rigid and broader elastic, I’ve had good results from the softer knitted types. I’m terrible at fixing things after the fact and if this was me I’d just stitch through the elastic at strategic places, sometimes you can get away with that without compromising stretch.

It’s not that the elastic is turning inside the casing, it’s my fat belly actually catapulting it down and out, so the whole waistband flaps to the outside. Annoying, and then my belly hangs out too. Not nice. That’s why I’d wanted to do the wider version, two rows of wide elastic might have enough grip to stay up! I’ll have a go this weekend, as I also need to re-level my glam red dress, as the hem drooped all over the place in the wash. Buggrit!

Lovely trousers. The colour is great and so summery. You sort of match your garden. That is a cool thing. Style Arc patterns are very cool and trendy. I bet the waistband treatment makes them very comfy. Xx